INDIA TO OPEN 2019 WORLD CUP AGAINST SA
WILL TAKE ON PAKISTAN AT OLD TRAFFORD ON JUNE 16
KOLKATA: India will open their 2019 World Cup campaign against South Africa on June 5 instead of June 2 as the BCCI will have to maintain a mandatory 15-day gap between IPL final and international assignment as per the Lodha Committee recommendations.
The 2019 World Cup will be held in the UK from May 30 to July 14.
The matter was discussed during the ICC Chief Executives Meeting here today.
“The 2019 IPL will be played between March 29 and May 19. But we need to maintain a 15-day gap and World Cup starts on May 30. Therefore as per 15 day gap we could have only played on June 5. Earlier, we were scheduled to start on June 2 but we couldn’t have played on that day,” said a senior BCCI official present on conditions of anonymity.
“South Africa are our first opponents. The CEC agreed and the matter has been referred to the ICC board,” he said. The official had earlier stated that the match will be on June 4 but later corrected himself.
Interestingly, ICC in their variIt ous marquee events have always started with an Indo-Pak fixture which is almost always a sell-out. It happened in the 2015 World Cup in Australia (at Adelaide) and 2017 Champions Trophy in UK (in Birmingham).
“This is the first time Indo-Pak match won’t be a starting affair. Since the format will be a round robin affair (all teams playing each other like 1992),” the official added.
Among the other decisions that were formalised included the FTP for the next five year cycle from 2019-23.
“As we had decided, India will play a maximum 309 days of international cricket in this cycle across formats, a reduction of 92 days from the earlier cycle.
“However the number of home Test matches will increase from 15 to 19. All these Tests will be part of the World Test Championship,” he added.
was also confirmed that India will not play any Day/Night Test match for now as it’s not a part of World Test Championship. “All matches in ICC World Test Championship are day matches played with red ball. If that’s the case, there is no point in playing pink ball Tests if it doesn’t help in preparation for World Test Championship,” he concluded.
INDIA TO PLAY BANGLA MORE
KOLKATA: There are chances that India might host Bangladesh more in future with the issue of a greater number of bilateral series between the two set to be discussed when Future Tours Programme (FTP) for 2019-2023 is confirmed here during the on-going ICC meet.
“We are expecting some more matches in the next ICC FTP cycle. There will be more number of India-Bangladesh matches in both India and Bangladesh. We are hopeful,” said a Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) official.